she says it's only a game
by sablize
Summary: ...and she plays a long game. It's the only way she knows how to play. (a rewrite of the ending)


**Title: **she says it's only a game

**Author: **sablize

**Character/Pairing: **Alma Dray, Dylan Rhodes, brief appearances by/mentions of other characters

**Summary:** ...and she plays a long game. It's the only way she knows how to play. (a rewrite of the ending)

**Spoilers:** The entire ending/plot twist of this movie. Don't say I didn't warn you.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own a thing.

**Author's Notes: **I saw this movie two days ago and left the theater so disappointed that Dylan and not Alma was the one who was behind it all and convinced that that would've been the better twist, probably because Elementary gave me a taste for kickass manipulative ladies. This isn't dialogue heavy because I didn't have the movie in front of me and I probably missed a few things, but screw it. Enjoy.

* * *

When Alma Dray was young, she went by a different name, had long brown hair that fell down her back in dark shining curls, and had a father who came home sometimes and let her sit on his lap while he did card tricks and pulled silvery American coins from behind her ear.

Then he sank to the bottom of a river in a dirt-cheap safe, and things became different. She changed her name, dyed her hair platinum-blonde, and settled in.

Alma Dray plays a long game. It's the only game she knows how to play.

Some say revenge is an acquired taste, and it's a truth she's all too familiar with. Some days she takes a step back and thinks _What the hell am I doing_? Then she remembers—remembers her father, who was mostly absent but was still her _father_, who fell in love with her mother on a warm romantic night in Paris and who broke her heart when he failed to resurface. He had always been there to remind her that the world was more than it seemed, and that was a lesson she would never forget.

So she gets back to her plotting and her well laid plans with revenge settling sweet on her tongue, because goddamn if she won't bring Thaddeus Bradley down with everything she's got and not dare hesitate for a second.

In the end, she thinks she's picked a good bunch.

Daniel is resourceful and clever, bright if not a bit cocky, but that she can handle. He's got a heart somewhere deep down, she knows. And if it isn't heart he's got, it's ambition and ambition, in this scenario, is enough.

Henley has heart where Daniel does not, sly cunning where he has resources, and a bit of sadism that is ultimately what appeals to Alma the most. As she watches gullible patrons desperately trying to save the drowning girl lost in a sea of red, she can't help but grin—because there she is, the drowning girl, smiling and laughing and rising from the floor, completely unharmed. And even though part of her wishes that it was her father resurfacing from that river instead, she can't help but admire Henley's resilience, in the end.

Merritt is just as sly as Henley and just as cocky (if not more) as Daniel, but he's got experience where the others do not, and a heart protected by reinforced steel that shows just how often he has been hurt and how much he refuses to be hurt again. She likes that quality of him, because there is no room for sentimentality or doubt in a man who refuses to let himself feel.

She initially doesn't think much of Jack, but seeing him at work makes her realize his potential—he's sly like the rest of them, but he's so unremarkable on the outside that he flies below the radar so well that it's hard not to admire. He's the youngest and the least experienced which makes him the weakest link, but she has three strong backups to keep him on the straight and narrow, and that will have to do.

Her plan is so near to completion that she can nearly taste the revenge growing closer, sweeter on her tongue. She lays her final cards and sits back to watch the hand unfold.

Dylan Rhodes is kind of an idiot.

(It's easy—too easy—to admit.)

Of course, he tries, and she supposes that's the main thing. It's not his fault that his opponents are propelled by an ambition too enormous for him to grasp, to even comprehend. Even when she starts to like him a bit, and tries to sneak hints when she can, he still doesn't quite _get_ it.

Still, it doesn't merit the harsh words he slings at her—it may merit the suspicion, but she doesn't deserve his rudeness or his bullshit sense of superiority over her.

_Why did you take this case?_

She has to hold back the _Why the hell do you think, dumbass?_ that's on the tip of her tongue, because sometimes she forgets he doesn't know the whole story. And then she stalks off, because life has handed her enough shit, and Dylan Rhodes' senseless anger is not going to be her breaking point. She's better than that. She's_ stronger _than that.

The reveal is her favorite part.

Of course, the philanthropy was nice, too, as was the whole playing-innocent act. But it's all surpassed by the look of complete shock on Rhodes' face, by the way Bradley stiffens before he turns, lips parted in surprise that Rhodes can barely match.

"Now you see me," she says with a smirk, leaning against the rusty metal bars of the cell she hopes Bradley will rot in forever. "Took you a damn long time."

Game completed, things begin to slow down after that. She almost misses the thrill, but the satisfaction of a job well done is more than enough to content her.

"Knew I'd find you here," she says one day, suddenly appearing on a certain bridge. It's been a while since she's seen Rhodes, but she figures that the vacation to Paris was his way of taking a (probably well-deserved) break after the whole ordeal. There is a lock weighing heavily in her palm, half-tucked up her sleeve, as she sits down beside him.

"Lionel Shrike had a daughter," she continues, when he doesn't answer except to blink at her incredulously (he does that a lot, she's learned). "That daughter was me, if you haven't figured out yet."

Finally, slowly, Rhodes nods. "So that whole thing was because you wanted revenge for his death?"

"Yes," she replies, and nods, too. "And I got to give some people the money they deserved, and helped four others access magic they had never even dreamed of. Doesn't that count for anything?"

He laughs a little hysterically and drags a weary hand across his eyes. "Yes. I suppose it does."

There's a pause as they bask in the midday sun, watching Parisians and tourists alike pass by. Then, she asks, "Are you going to turn me in?"

"No," he replies, almost instantly. "No, I won't."

She smiles, and it's genuine. She holds up the lock in one finger and inclines her head towards the chain link wall already littered with multitudes of them. "What do you say, then? Our little secret?"

He laughs again, stands, and reaches for her hand. "Yeah, alright."

The lock slides home around a free link with a satisfying, metallic _click_, and she tosses the key into the Seine without a second of hesitation. Like her father's safe, she knows that it will never resurface—and somehow that's okay.

"_Au revoir_," she whispers in his ear. She presses one last kiss to the curve of his temple, and then she is gone.


End file.
